He was born as Franz Reuther in 1941 in Kirn an der Nahe, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. His father died in the war before his son was born, so his mother was left alone with three children. At the age of 14, he moved in with his relatives in the Saar region and then became a cook.
His career as a rock and pop singer began in the 1960s. In the mid-1970s, he achieved success with his song Rocky, but after that he rarely performed and started working as a producer.
Boney M., founded by him, wrote pop history with the songs Daddy Cool, Rasputin, Rivers of Babylon or Ma Baker, although it was later revealed that the vocals of the group’s male frontman, Bobby Farrell, were sung by Farian.
However, due to the duo Milli Vanilli, he was involved in a scandal in the early nineties, when he admitted that Fab Morvan and Rob Pilatus only gaped and danced on stage, and did not sing in any songs.
During his career, he won several gold records and performed well on the music charts. As he once stated: the secret of his success was that when he mixed a song, he thought of his time as a chef. “It all depends on the ingredients. You can say that you will become a musician, but a lot depends on luck. Success cannot be planned,” he said.
